A large percentage of consumers attempt to control their weight and levels of body fat through control of caloric and fat intake. In addition, many consumers try to reduce their existing cholesterol level through reduced cholesterol intake. Butter and margarine are both significant sources of fat and calories and butter is a significant source of cholesterol.
Butter contains a high level of animal fat (about 80 to 82%) which many consumers find unacceptable. Margarine is usually produced from an emulsion of oils and fats derived from vegetables. Since margarines are derived from vegetable fats they are cholesterol free, however, margarine contains the same amount of fat as butter.
Attempts have been made to reduce the fat content in butter-like and margarine-like products. For example, the proportion of the fat in butter can be replaced by vegetable fats, which are considered to be nutritionally more acceptable than animal fats. Substitution of some or all of the animal fat with vegetable fat to produce a lower cholesterol butter has the added benefit of softening the end product and making it more spreadable.
However, low calorie, reduced fat margarine-like and butter-like products have not met with consumer expectations since they are not stable and since the caloric and fat reductions are not sufficient. Therefore, there is a need for improved butter-flavored toppings which have sufficient taste and low caloric and fat content, and which are sufficiently stable for typical use.
In addition to having health concerns regarding levels of caloric and fat content, many consumers desire increased ease of use of and improved storage of butter or butter-flavored toppings. For instance, normal use of conventional spreadable butter or butter-flavored toppings requires the user to remove a serving from a container. Such removal typically requires contact between the remaining butter or butter-flavored topping and often results in contamination of the remaining butter or butter-flavored topping. A butter-flavored topping which is packaged so as to prevent such contamination is an improvement over conventional butter and butter-flavored toppings.
Furthermore, use of conventional butter or butter-flavored toppings requires opening the container, using a utensil to remove a serving, spreading the serving, closing the container and cleaning or disposing of the utensil. Such a process is aggravated if the topping is too hard or too soft and is difficult to remove or spread. A butter-flavored topping which can be delivered more easily is an improvement over conventional butter and butter-flavored toppings.
Therefore, an improved butter-flavored topping and method of preparation thereof which addresses the problems of known butter-like and margarine-like toppings would be an important advance in the art.